Gameday and You. or, a word on etiquette, community and gameday.

Flame

aa
Jul 19, 2009
368
865
idk when this got more derailed than it was already.

the voteskip would be sufficient. theres no point playing maps with obvious flaws that make it unplayable for 20-30 minutes.
 

Fraz

Blu Hatte, Greyscale Backdrop.
aa
Dec 28, 2008
944
1,152
idk when this got more derailed than it was already.

the voteskip would be sufficient. theres no point playing maps with obvious flaws that make it unplayable for 20-30 minutes.

If its unplayable the gameday host has the ability to change the map.
 

SPHinx

L2: Junior Member
Aug 29, 2009
81
24
For what it's worth, I'd like to relate a bit my first gameday experience:

In the first few seconds of the test, as players go bounding out the spawn doors, there are snap and not-so-helpful judgments like, "this is big", "lots of props" and "this is obviously someone's first map". Indeed, this WAS my first map and to have it immediately appear so (and criticized for it) was discouraging. Thankfully, someone else replied: "C'mon, don't be that rude. We've been here for like a minute. Let's actually play the map first." And from that point on, a helpful sentiment seemed to stick. There were 5 or so players in particular who, for the duration of the map, made a number of concrete criticisms and encouraging suggestions. At one point, someone urged others players not to stack classes in an effort to maintain the integrity of a balanced test. It was so helpful, in fact, that I had to watch the demo multiple times in order to scribble down all of the comments.

This was on Dec. 2. Maybe I was just lucky to have a good group of testers. I don't know. I do hope, however, that things have not changed so much since then that an experience such as I had is now unlikely to be repeated.

I know it is not an easy thing to take a genuine interest in the work of others, especially when that work betrays a lack of care or skill. But it seems to me that moving past the impatience, the snap judgments, and the unhelpful opinions or criticisms is really what is required to make gamedays worthwhile - whatever the rules and regulations might be.
 

PenPen

L5: Dapper Member
Apr 24, 2008
207
136
I've been to gamedays well before the timeslot changed (time zone issues and whatnot) and have not been getting on gamedays much mostly because I can't play at those times.

I like gamedays before mostly because it was a good way for a bunch of guys to try out a new map and provide feedback. However on more recent ones it felt more like a bunch of people randomly gathering together. The community has grown and the number of players have as well, and I see some people join gameday and I don't think they're from TF2maps (unless the Steam names change so much that I can't recognize who's who anymore). They'd just play a map, realize it's not what they came for, and leave.

I haven't played much on gameday mostly because of apathy plus the time zone issue, but during earlier days I would post feedback on various maps and take screenies of them to feedback later (or trying the map by myself). I guess I just don't have the motivation now to work on those. But I do have some remaining motivation to make gamedays better.

If we're keeping gameday, I'd like to make two suggestions, which may sound elitist to some. The first one is to make it a password-only server on gameday hours. It's a TF2maps server and the gameday is mostly intended for TF2map members anyway. Pass out the password to the people who are in the group's Steam chat before gameday starts, or through some other means.

Another is to make a "map critique group" of sorts for gameday. This means that perhaps some members volunteer to join gameday if they're able, and provide solid feedback afterwards on their experience, whether by in-game chat or uploading and posting in the thread of that map. How this is set-up, I'm not sure, perhaps we will have some members posting in the respective gameday thread saying that they'll be attending beforehand as a volunteer tester. Or have a group of around 20 people who volunteer to test maps and provide feedback on every map they tried on during gameday. And if you're volunteering, and you played the map, you must provide feedback. There's no real reward for this, but you'll at least get thanked by the mapmaker for providing solid feedback on improving the map.

Is gameday necessary? I think it is, because I'm not a paid member and I don't get to access the server (and is a relatively forgotten member heh), gameday is the only way for me to have people try out my map properly. If gameday is gone, then I don't even get to know what the heck is wrong with my map design-wise or gameplay-wise.

But must quality be a requirement to enroll your map in gameday? Yes, it needs to. To me it's relatively simple. If your map is working fine without a huuuuuuuge gaping exploitable issue that is repeatable (emphasis on repeatable), I would say it's okay, it just needs to be a solid, workable map with all the intended and required entities and functions in the map and working (unless you're trying out a new concept which needs to be playtested). We can't have a map that crashes servers be submitted, we can't have a cp map without a real cp or a ctf map where there's no intel. It'll be a waste of everyone's time and it shows the mapmaker has some issues that he needs to fix before submitting. Obviously, mapmakers may miss on some things. Then it's the gameday player/testers to tell him what's up. But if he made a map before, or at least tried to make a map before and playtested it himself in the game, and it works fine, I think they would normally have at least some idea on what's right/wrong.

How do we determine that though? I don't think ABJ has 48 hours a day (I know ABJ is awesome but he can't twist time, unfortunately) to test out every map that was submitted for gameday. I guess we'll have to work out a solution if we are to have a 'quality bar' set for map submissions.

So that's all I have to ramble. Hopefully all this above would be useful in some form.
 

Flame

aa
Jul 19, 2009
368
865
i think i can take 10 minutes a day to walk around in the submissions and determine playability.

no offense to who submitted koth_glug for this weekend but there is no way any server is playing that map.
 

Caliostro

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 6, 2009
261
110
For what it's worth, I'd like to relate a bit my first gameday experience:

In the first few seconds of the test, as players go bounding out the spawn doors, there are snap and not-so-helpful judgments like, "this is big", "lots of props" and "this is obviously someone's first map".

Allow me to cut you off for a second.

Yes, a lot of people give out completely unhelpful "critics", but that said, the first two you mentioned are relevant and helpful.

If people claim a map is big there's 2 possible situations: Either your map simply LOOKS big, usually because of very high ceiling and structures that offset the average relative sense of size, despite the area in question possibly being perfectly fine in size, or it is actually too big and needs to be scaled down. Best way to judge which is to see how it plays.

If people are saying "lots of props" there's generally 1 of 2 situations implied: Either they're saying it as a compliment or as critic. If it's a compliment then, take it for what it is and be happy with it! If it's a critic then what's generally implied is that your map feels like elements have simply been tacked on to it instead of having a cohesive, coherent, space.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
i think i can take 10 minutes a day to walk around in the submissions and determine playability.

no offense to who submitted koth_glug for this weekend but there is no way any server is playing that map.

Booj used to screen gameday maps. It's not something he is able to do these days what with the amount of gamedays running and anything else he has to do around here.

Impromptu's seem to be an efficient way of determining these sorts of issues without wasting a lot of peoples time in a gameday; not to mention other mappers time whom could have had a legitemate entry in that slot.
 

SPHinx

L2: Junior Member
Aug 29, 2009
81
24
Allow me to cut you off for a second.

Yes, a lot of people give out completely unhelpful "critics", but that said, the first two you mentioned are relevant and helpful.

If people claim a map is big there's 2 possible situations: Either your map simply LOOKS big, usually because of very high ceiling and structures that offset the average relative sense of size, despite the area in question possibly being perfectly fine in size, or it is actually too big and needs to be scaled down. Best way to judge which is to see how it plays.

If people are saying "lots of props" there's generally 1 of 2 situations implied: Either they're saying it as a compliment or as critic. If it's a compliment then, take it for what it is and be happy with it! If it's a critic then what's generally implied is that your map feels like elements have simply been tacked on to it instead of having a cohesive, coherent, space.

Really, dude? I thought it should have been obvious that my post is not to claim that scaling or prop use are irrelevant to map critique. The point was that there is a spirit of criticism that seeks to quickly disapprove based on snap reactions and judgments. This is to be contrasted with a more patient and constructive spirit that reserves judgment until it is properly grounded in experience. To remark "this is big" during a playtest is not all that helpful, unless it is accompanied by evidence and further remarks for how the scale in the particular case impacts the game experience.
 

Armadillo of Doom

Group Founder, Lover of Pie
aa
Oct 25, 2007
949
1,228
I've been following since the first post, and would like you guys to know that this thread hasn't gone unnoticed by the powers that be ;) Boojum is the one who selflessly handles all of the busy-work for Gamedays, and so was the first to notice the trends described in the op. Due to the highly informal nature of our community, stuff like this usually doesn't have an immediate answer. That said, I encourage you to continue the discussion here, remaining civil to all members, and especially to Boojum. Shooting of the messenger will not be tolerated.
 

Caliostro

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 6, 2009
261
110
Boojum is the one who selflessly handles all of the busy-work for Gamedays, and so was the first to notice the trends described in the op.

Allow me to take a second to point out that my criticism towards gamedays was meant as constructive. I really can empathize with Booj and fully appreciate his effort, he's gone well above and beyond the "line of duty" here, so Booj, when you read this, I'm pretty sure most of the community (the people that matter at least) is truly grateful for your work and honestly are just looking to drop you some constructive feedback here.

I know Booj isn't stupid, bu this whole thread can have a very demoralizing feeling to it, specially under the ambiguous light of the internet. So just leaving a shoutout here. I don't think any of us could do better man than you have done.
 

Psy

The Imp Queen
aa
Apr 9, 2008
1,706
1,491
I think if people just realised what gameday was for, even that would be helping.

Yeah. This is why I like the idea of passwording the server and only allowing members of the TF2Maps group to join. Having randomers join and moan without being constructive is pointless. Of course, filtering just group members alone won't prevent people like this from joining but it would help to reduce them.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Yeah, even if it is a little bit of a double edged sword. I mean i guess it comes down to whether we serve the mappers here or the greater TF2 community; although technically by serving the mappers we inevitably serve the TF2 community anyway, even if our maps are not getting as much public coverage through its development, through the gameday system. You know?

That would mean more efficient testing sessions... perhaps we could have specifically setup public gamedays and other mapper specific testing gamedays. Because obviously late beta testing will need more thorough gameplay testing, which we can get with the current system. But it's less helpful for alpha's and often early beta's as well.
 

lana

Currently On: ?????
aa
Sep 28, 2009
3,075
2,778
Keep in mind, we won't necessarily stop using a game breaking bug ourselves. We need to stop acting as if we're incorruptible and actually show that we won't exploit others' maps. Also, bugs like these may need some usage to determine how severe they are and how to fix them. If you mention the spot you were using, it won't help as much as taking a look at what you can do from there, and demonstrating it to see if it is actually a problem spot.
 

Colt Seavers

L6: Sharp Member
Dec 30, 2007
288
82
I must say, I'd hate to think of ABS being disheartened by this thread - any more than he already is.

For the record, if it wasn't for him, I suspect many of us wouldn't be as into mapping as we are. His resource packs alone make him a legend. His efforts for gameday have shocked even me - and I've run the same format in the past - it's bloody hard work.

Having read what everyone has to say, my own conclusion is
1) It's a job that's too big for one man. ABS needs a small staff - people who will guarentee to load up all the maps for gameday the day before. ABS being there at the gameday test itself should be all the real 'work' needed - otherwise the man driving this great facility will burn out and bore of it more than he already has.
2) Scrap the no changes rule - as long as you have a propperly new and working
version of your map - that you'd like to test - you submit it as has been happenning, and have till 24 hours before the session to update. It seem it was never the intention to punish those who work longer hours on their maps. There must be no exceptions for anyone to this rule. If you miss it, impromtu till next time.
3) Instigate a '5 minute walkround option vote.' This would disable weapon damage and allow the option of a new map being 'explored' as I often want tto do this when i join one for the first time. It's how it's always worked on Playstuff playtests.
4) SHOW EACH OTHER FRIENDLY RESPECT: expect a 15 minute ban from admin if you don't, with only one warning given (if that - i say just do it - we trust you admins and don't want to make it any harder for you ;)
5) Spread the manlove ;)
6) goto 4

Seriously, whether it's passworded or not, if only the people reading this made an effort to remain honest but respectful in their feedback in game, it will rub off on anyone joining the server. Curt, rude feedback does nothing but dishearten someone who may well have spent 10s of hours trying their very best and does nothing for peoples moods. That doesn't mean you don't criticize - it means try and do it a little more like a human being is listenning.

Maps may be boring and new - but if the people you're sitting running around them with are doing 3)-5) the experience will be a pleasure - a get together with mates.

/buts out
 
Last edited: